The above United States map helps focus one’s attention on the importance of the Electoral College.
The map gives inside information on the Joe Biden campaign strategy for winning the White House in 2020. You won’t likely see it anyplace else. Please keep it top secret. The map was shared with me and several hundred-thousand other insiders. Maybe a million insiders. Because Joe Biden has our email addresses and wants us to send money.
The Upper Midwest
You can see a row of six states in the upper Midwest, from Pennsylvania in the east to Minnesota and Iowa in the west. They’re medium-size states; together they have 80 electoral votes. Donald Trump won five of the six states in 2016. Joe Biden’s campaign has its work cut out, don’t you think? Consider:
- Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes
- Ohio, 18 electoral votes
- Michigan, 16 electoral votes
- Wisconsin, 10 electoral votes
- Minnesota, 10 electoral votes
- Iowa, 6 electoral votes
The Electoral College totals 538 votes. The winning candidate needs a bare majority, 270 votes. Joe Biden doesn’t need all six states and their 80 votes to win. But he’s going to have a hard time reaching 270 unless he wins at least four. The most likely four would be Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, totaling 56 electoral votes.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Minnesota. But she lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by fewer than 2 percent of the votes in each state. If she had won those three states, she would have won with 274 electoral votes.
So now you know the most important states in the Biden campaign strategy, and maybe in the Trump strategy as well.
Pack your suitcase or nag
What can you do? If you desperately want Biden to win, the best thing you can do is pack your suitcase, move to one of the four states, and be a tireless volunteer from now until November. Or you can contribute money to the Biden campaign.
Or you can nag your spouse, children, parents, neighbors, and the people at work. Tell them all to vote for Joe Biden. You can do it right where you live.
Make sure they register to vote. Urge them to apply for a mail-in ballot, or at least to vote early. If you don’t like the word “nag,” you may substitute the word “electioneer.”
There’s not one right way to reach 270 votes
Biden has at least a fighting chance to also win Ohio and Iowa. If he wins all six states, it wouldn’t guarantee victory, but he’d be on his way.
Donald Trump also doesn’t need all six states to be reelected. But he won five of them in 2016, and he needed them. He probably needs to win two of the states, at a minimum, Ohio and Iowa. And he’d seriously like to win a few more.
If you desperately want Trump to win, you know where to volunteer. You know whom to nag. Or electioneer.
Now, there’s two more states in the Upper Midwest. You might overlook them because they’re not highlighted on the map. They are Illinois (20 electoral votes) and Indiana (11 electoral votes). They’re colored grey because political observers understand that Illinois will most likely support the Democratic ticket in November, and Indiana will most likely support the Republican ticket.
Do not take Electoral College votes for granted
It does’t mean Illinois and Indiana are not important, as some critics of the Electoral College suppose. Their electoral votes are absolutely crucial for the Biden and Trump campaigns. The assumptions that Illinois will go Democratic and Indiana will go Republican are as close to a sure thing as any assumptions you can make for 2020. But no one can absolutely predict an election! Beware of assumptions. Voters have surprised the experts before, and they will do it again.
Make no mistake: A candidate who takes any state and its voters for granted is a candidate at risk. Hillary Clinton expected to win in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, so she focused her efforts on other states. She virtually ignored Michigan and Wisconsin.
Michigan and Wisconsin paid her back by narrowly voting for Donald Trump! The electoral votes of Michigan (16 votes) and Wisconsin (10 votes), along with Pennsylvania (20 votes) tipped the Electoral College to Trump. Clinton squeaked by with a national popular vote majority, but so what? The Electoral College rules.
And you know what? Clinton very nearly lost Minnesota and its 10 votes.
If you seriously want to understand the Electoral College and the 2020 election, you should read the above paragraphs again. They don’t mean that any of the Midwest states hold the key to the 2020 election. The point is: Some states get extra attention because they’re considered battleground states. But every state is important, any state might surprise you, and every state’s electoral votes count.
Do not imagine that I am disclosing Biden campaign secrets to the Trump organization. Donald Trump also has a map of the U.S., and he knows all the same information about the Electoral College that Joe Biden knows.
And do not imagine that the Midwest states are the end of the 2020 story. They’re only the beginning. ALL the states highlighted on the map are important. The candidates are going to work like hell for all of them. Because if they lose one or two important states, it’s not the end. They can make it up by winning other states.
And some of the states colored grey might surprise you like a jack-in-the-box on election night.
Eventually, we’ll go through the list of all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., and ponder the possibilities for November 2020. It’s all about arithmetic.
# # # # # #
I had planned to wrap up some loose ends from Part 1 at this point. Clarify why it’s useless to worry about changing the Electoral College and the winner-take-all electoral vote system right now. But Part 2 is already too long. So we’ll briefly address those loose ends in Part 3. And then move on quickly to review the 2016 Electoral College results as a preview to what’s ahead in 2020. See you in Part 3.
— John Hayden
Living Simply And Still On The Grid 
Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
The Bulwark reported that the presidential election could come down to three states: Nevada, Michigan and Georgia.
As of April 2, 2020, Sabato’s Crystal Ball said only 57 electoral votes in four states (Pennsylvania – 20, North Carolina – 15, Arizona -11, Wisconsin – 10) and one district vote in Nebraska are not predictable.
Politico said only five states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona) are likely to be politically relevant in the 2020 presidential race.
“Experts generally agree that the key swing states to focus on this year are Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” – Newsweek 3/13/20
“Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia are no longer swing states and are OFF THE TABLE.” – Wasserman, Cook Political Report, Democracy Matters Conference, March 2019
Not a single one of the ten smallest states, or a single one of the most rural states, has hosted a major general campaign event for a presidential candidate during the last 20 years.
Almost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states are totally ignored after the conventions.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking.
Our presidential selection system shrinks the sphere of public debate to only a few thousand swing voters in a few states.
The only states that have received any campaign events and any significant ad money have been where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican.
In 2000, the Bush campaign, spent more money in the battleground state of Florida to win by 537 popular votes, than it did in 42 other states combined,
This leads to a corrupt and toxic body politic.
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I know, I know, many people lament that the presidential campaigns allegedly ignore all the states except the “battleground states.” (Is it even true?)
WHAT IS THE OBSESSION about being “ignored” by the presidential campaigns? What is so great about being bombarded by ceaseless political advertising?
It’s not as if anyone, in any state in the U.S., is likely to be unaware there’s an election going on!
Because of television news and national TV advertising, not to mention talk radio and social media from Facebook to eternity, EVERYONE in every state hears so much about presidential elections, constantly 24-7, that they’re SICK OF IT before the middle of October.
So give up this sick pretense that people in all the small states are deprived of information about the presidential election. It’s nonsense.
AND WHAT IS THE VALUE of having “campaign events” in your state, pray tell? The typical campaign event consists of the candidate’s plane touching down on the runway at a major airport. The candidate waves and gives a brief canned speech to a couple hundred supporters and local politicians before the plane takes off again. The local media gets to film it all and have something “local” for the evening news. If they’re lucky, a few local TV stars or newspaper reporters may even score a brief “interview” with the candidate. In which the candidate says exactly the same thing he or she says at every other airport. The candidate gets to say he visited the state! What difference does that kind of “attention” make? What do the people in non-battleground states lose?
What about the rare campaign event that’s more than a touchdown and takeoff at the airport?
You know, the motorcade to a hotel ballroom, or a state fairground? Or in Mr. Trump’s case, the huge rally in a stadium? Thousands of cheering fans (oops, I mean voters), bands playing, balloons!
And the headline event, an hourlong rant by the star of the show. For sport, maybe the candidate incites the crowd and provides a few minor attacks on the press corps, penned in like a herd of cattle. Or a few fistfights between Trump supporters and hecklers. The crowd loves it. And they get in free. (They probably stand in line for hours, pay to park, buy food and drink. And they feel compelled to buy campaign merch (overpriced T-shirts and hats) to prove they’re members of the tribe. A few folks make some money, but not much. The spectators go home exhausted but exhilarated. The candidate goes to a hotel room or gets back on the airplane.
The most important product: Lots of TV footage to feed the insatiable 24-hour appetite of cable news, which will show the most outrageous or sensational scenes over and over.
What is the value? What does it mean? isn’t that kind of campaign “event” nothing more than ENTERTAINMENT?
Bread and circuses. The truth is, we live in a shallow society addicted to entertainment. Sadly, our presidential politics is reduced to little more than entertainment.
Candidates like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden are, by comparison, BORING entertainment. They draw smaller crowds, give milder speeches, and rarely say anything new. At least they provide a little music and some balloons.
Folks who turn out for such campaign entertainment — whether rowdy or boring — gain little if anything in the way of information. They may or may not be motivated to go vote. Or disenchanted enough to stay home. They will be able to tell their grandchildren that they saw a real presidential candidate in a live performance. Not everyone can say that.
Bottom line, voters in all the “ignored” states are plenty well-informed. if they’re really interested, they can become virtual experts, like yourself, Mr. Oldgulph.
It’s only human to resent being “ignored.” But it doesn’t mean your vote is not important. As I pointed out in the above post, candidates focus on some voters and ignore others AT THEIR OWN RISK. That’s never been a secret among political insiders. But it was highlighted for all to see in 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost states she should have won, because she thought they weren’t “battleground states.”
Savvy presidential candidates have often pledged to campaign in all 50 states, and they’ve tried to do it. Because they know that just eking out a slim victory winning the easy states and picking up a few more is only winning.
Savvy candidates understand that winning big, carrying most of the states in a national landslide (was Ronald Reagan the last one to do it?) can make them a president with power to do great things.
So if you enjoy the entertainment of a campaign rally, go for it. But please, let’s bury this pretense that most of the voters are missing something. They’re not missing anything but cheap entertainment.
Their votes and their states are always important. They can make a big difference in who becomes president.
If voters in small states want to, they can become politically active, organize their neighbors, and make history on election day. Just like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin did in 2016.
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Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Issues of importance to 38+ non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
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Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.
State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.
The small states do not share a political tendency.
In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).
Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.
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Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Some policies are evaluated based on their impact on swing states, not on their overall impact on the nation.
Policies important to the citizens of the 38+ non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
The National Popular Vote system addresses the core threat of parochialism in presidential elections.
“Battleground” states receive 7% more presidentially controlled grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions.
Compare the response to hurricane Katrina (in Louisiana, a “safe” state) to the federal response to hurricanes in Florida (a “swing” state) under Presidents of both parties. President Obama took more interest in the BP oil spill, once it reached Florida’s shores, after it had first reached Louisiana. Some pandering policy examples include ethanol subsidies, steel tariffs, and Medicare Part D. Policies not given priority, include those most important to non-battleground states – like water issues in the west.
In May 2019, after Hurricane Michael in October 2018, Trump told battleground state Florida voters “You’re getting your money one way or another, and we’re not going to let anybody hold it up.””I am doing the most allowed by law to support the people of Florida,” “We’ve already given you billions of dollars, and there’s a lot more coming.” “The money is coming immediately. No games, no gimmicks. We’re just doing it.”
While Trump claimed that Puerto Rico doesn’t need any more disaster relief. funds
Puerto Ricans, American citizens without any electoral votes, are not receiving aid money and are still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The interests of battleground states shape innumerable government policies, including, for example, steel quotas imposed by the free-trade president, George W. Bush, and the Trump steel and aluminum tariffs now, from the free-trade party.
Electoral math drives protectionist trade policies to favor parochial interests in battleground states.
Trump decided to exit the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Agreement, understanding that his Electoral College majority came via a few thousand votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
The root cause of the current trade war is the state-based winner take all system.
“Trump’s Tariff Is a Gift to Swing States” – Bloomberg – 3/20/18
And conversely, Trump’s trade war, with China targeting red states, could hurt the very voters who put him in the White House.
“The Chinese are proving pretty adept at targeting so-called “red states” with their retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports, in response to more aggressive tariffs from President Trump on Chinese imports.” – Forbes – 9/25/19
As trade and other tensions increase with foreign countries, U.S. foes and trading partners can micro-target their efforts against us. They’re certainly going to target major U.S. exports like soybeans and pork and investments, and many of those are in areas like the Farm Belt. The agriculture community is concerned about it. There are other possible easily identified targets as well.
European Union officials quickly crafted possible retaliatory tariffs against American goods, using strategies using their knowledge of the effects of state winner take all laws for awarding electoral votes.
Look at the ailing agricultural industry and companies like Harley Davidson as casualties of the “winner-take-all” system. As the result of President Trump’s trade war, targeted countries retaliate by attacking industries in key “battleground” states, like Wisconsin, Michigan, and others that they know could harm his reelection.
The system generates policy in a way that isn’t even always good for the battleground states
The current state-based winner-take-all system allows foreign governments to weaponize protectionism against the battleground states and encourages presidents to start trade wars in order to win parochial voters in a handful of battleground states.
Facing fierce opposition by Democratic and Republican governors in all coastal states, after the Trump administration announced the opening of offshore oil drilling, only battleground state Florida has been exempted.
Parochial local considerations of battleground states preoccupy presidential candidates as well as sitting Presidents (contemplating their own reelection or the ascension of their preferred successor).
Even travel by sitting Presidents and Cabinet members in non-election years has been skewed to battleground states
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“McConnell’s ploy — and Trump’s Twitter ditto — offered an illustration of how much damage the Electoral College system continues to inflict on our politics.
If we had a one-person, one-vote national system for electing presidents, McConnell would have to worry about alienating voters in Democratic states, the same way that Gov. Greg Abbott has to worry about alienating voters in the blue counties of Texas.
Abbott lost Bexar County to Lupe Valdez in 2018, but he still captured more than 251,000 votes here. He doesn’t want to go out of his way to antagonize those voters, because they all count on the state vote total.
By contrast, the voters of New York and New Jersey — our two biggest Donor States, and the two states with the highest number of COVID-19 cases — are politically irrelevant to Trump (and, by extension, McConnell).
In 2016, Trump received more than 22 million votes in the states carried by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. For all he cares, however, he might as well have gotten zero votes in those states, because that’s how many electoral votes he received.” – San Antonio Express News – 4/29/20
Trump and McConnell aren’t waging war on coronavirus, they’re waging war on Blue states where Trump can’t win Electoral College votes.
Trump and McConnell are putting their boots to the neck of every state they deem ideologically unfit.
“Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed.” – Trump, 4/27/20
Senators Claim Trump’s Coronavirus Response Favored Swing States
the administration “made decisions about distributing life-saving supplies based on electoral concerns of the President and his political allies”
a White House aide is quoted saying “the president knows Florida is so important for his reelection, so when DeSantis says that, it means a lot… He pays close attention to what Florida wants.” – Forbes, 4/23/20
Trump’s vindictiveness towards blue states is “only possible because Trump has fully internalized the logic of the Electoral College, which, through its winner-take-all bloc system, renders Trump’s margin in deep-blue states irrelevant. Nearly 4.5 million Californians and almost 3 million New Yorkers voted for Trump in 2016, but that number could collapse to zero without hurting Trump’s electoral prospects. Treating half of America like hostile, conquered territory has surprisingly little political downside for Trump.
The effects of this attitude have been of minor practical consequence until the coronavirus. Now, as states desperately scramble for protective gear and life-saving equipment, Trump is signaling to governors that their level of federal cooperation will depend on them providing the level of flattery he expects.” – Jonathan Chait – 3/25/20
“Massachusetts received 17% of requested medical supplies from the Trump administration. Maine got 5%. Colorado only received 1 day’s worth. Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got everything he requested and is getting an identical shipment next week.
Trump is distributing desperately needed resources according to their party and loyalty to the president”. – 3/29/20
“As states across the country have fought to get their hands on a piece of the governments strategic stockpile of masks, gloves and other supplies, Trump’s biases appear to have been reflected in the allocation of those goods.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the government’s stockpile was nearly depleted. [Democratic Governor]Whitmer and the state of Michigan had received just “a fraction” of what they’d requested, the Post reported.
Florida, meanwhile — a must-win state for Trump in 2020 and home to a close [Republican] ally of his, Gov. Ron DeSantis — got everything it asked for and more.” – 4/2/20 – Talking Points Memo
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In 2016, Karl Rove advised Trump – “Look, you’re welcome to try and win [a state you can’t win], but every day you spend trying to win a state you can’t win is a day that a presidential candidate forfeits winning in a state like, in your case, Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or Iowa.”
“You’ve got to—we had to focus on 270 and that meant that every day that we spent outside those states was a day that was wasted, unless we had either fundraising necessities or a national message that we needed to…” “Every day is vital, and we put all of our time and all of our energy and all of our resources into our battleground-state effort.”
In the 2016 general election campaign
Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).
Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country’s population).
In the 2012 general election campaign
38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.
More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states.
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
In the 2008 campaign, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA).
In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
States’ partisanship is hardening.
From 1992- 2016
13 states (with 102 electoral votes) voted Republican every time
16 states (with 195) voted Democratic every time
Many states have not been competitive for more than a half-century and most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position.
• 38 States Won by Same Party, 2000-2016
• 29 States Won by Same Party, 1992-2016
• 13 States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2012
• 19 States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2012
• 7 Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988
• 16 GOP States Not Swing State since 1988
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Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Issues of importance to 38+ non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.
In 2016, Karl Rove advised Trump – “Look, you’re welcome to try and win [a state you can’t win], but every day you spend trying to win a state you can’t win is a day that a presidential candidate forfeits winning in a state like, in your case, Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or Iowa.”
“You’ve got to—we had to focus on 270 and that meant that every day that we spent outside those states was a day that was wasted, unless we had either fundraising necessities or a national message that we needed to…” “Every day is vital, and we put all of our time and all of our energy and all of our resources into our battleground-state effort.”
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
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Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
“The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,”
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.
Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.
In the 2016 general election campaign
Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).
Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country’s population).
In the 2012 general election campaign
38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.
More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states.
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
In the 2008 campaign, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA).
In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
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States’ partisanship is hardening.
From 1992- 2016
13 states (with 102 electoral votes) voted Republican every time
16 states (with 195) voted Democratic every time
Many states have not been competitive for more than a half-century and most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position.
• 38 States Won by Same Party, 2000-2016
• 29 States Won by Same Party, 1992-2016
• 13 States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2012
• 19 States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2012
• 7 Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988
• 16 GOP States Not Swing State since 1988
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Very interesting. I’m looking forward to part three
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Dorothy, did you have the patience to read all the comments. I wrote a rebuttal to the first comment after you left this comment, so you might want to go back and check that out. You have better things to do than read ALL the comments.
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